I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for supporting location services.
II. Background
It is often desirable, and sometimes necessary, to know the location of a terminal in a wireless network. The terms “location” and “position” are synonymous and are used interchangeably herein. For example, a user may utilize the terminal to browse through a website and may click on location sensitive content. The location of the terminal may then be determined and used to provide appropriate content to the user. There are many other scenarios in which knowledge of the location of the terminal is useful or necessary.
A message flow (which may also be called a call flow or a procedure) is typically executed in order to obtain location information (e.g., a location estimate) for the terminal and to send the location information to a client entity. Various messages are typically exchanged between one or more network entities, the terminal, and the client entity for the message flow. These messages ensure that each entity is provided with pertinent information, or can obtain this information from another entity, in order to carry out positioning for the terminal and/or to deliver location information to the client entity. However, these messages add to the traffic at various network entities. The additional traffic may be especially great for location services in which location information may be periodically provided to the client entity. The messages may also extend the response time for sending the location information to the client entity.